Jocale. A Reflection on Co-Jewellery. Critical text and interview with Josef Friedrich by Dr. Phil. Ester Sposato-Friedrich

Josef Friedrich: My contribution in this context (Munich Jewelry Week) is a thought on the potential value of the self-expressive customization of jewellery (co-jowellery*) as a field of research. This is what I have been doing for twenty years, still, I can’t decide if I am a romantic relic or if I have a privileged view into a territory that seems to be largely unexplored. I wanted to express this reflection in the form that is most congenial to me, jewellery. I thought first to present a piece realized with a client, but I could not resist the challenge of creating something ex-novo: this is how the idea of "Jocale" took form.

Co-jewellery* links to the most ancient, universal, and powerful trait of jewellery: the semantic load. A key factor to reverse the common course of meaning transfer: it is the owner to be affirmed by the jewel and not the jewel that gives the owner an identity/status (economical or intellectual).

Co-jewellery* is about the client, but not merely about executing wishes or being part of the production. J.F.: The client relates to the aesthetic and sensibility my creations convey, choosing to connect and to trust me, or not". It is about preciousness, but not merely about luxury. J.F.: Often we re-use inherited jewellery or other materials provided. Once, a client and I made a bracelet out of a metal implant extracted after surgery, we created a memorial after a loss, we transmuted wedding rings after divorce (client melt it personally), ... . Observing the jewellery in its natural habitat offers information about people’s usage of it, with self-narrative, psychological, even therapeutical repercussions. Food for thought to dig into jewellery’s core. The creative process has multiple dimensions: it is a collaboration, an exchange, with the jewellery piece being its final distillation. There is the client and the seller, while the boundaries between artist/audience, maker/owner are fading.

J.F.: My creativity is both challenged and alimented by new input, I am working in a liminal space. Therefore, I stick to words I trust: I am a goldsmith, I make jewellery. Is this a constraint to my expression or is it an enrichment preserving me for auto-referentiality?. Exploring the "otherness" is a necessary and illuminating process. It is as well an embrace of the "known" in terms of rethinking its prerogatives. Could achieving a bigger engagement with society draw from the precious and intimate relation jewellery has with it intrinsically?

Josef Friedrich's "Jocale" is an invitation to consider if there is space for a more conscious and enriching usage of co-jewellery*, independently of its position in the contemporary jewellery discourse. J.F.: The design of the necklace takes its shape from the message the owner wants to convey. Only the reflection on the cuff's mirroring surface reveals it. The essence of the object and its appearance are blended in a contortion that defines its aesthetic, concealing and revealing the personal, emotional value. I wanted to find a kind of artistic "instrument" that could be comparable to my role and input in the creative process with the client. I opted for borrowing the antique visual-art technic of Anamorphose to conjunct those elements. I chose conventional forms (necklace, cuff), conventional materials (silver, gold) to intuitively relay and comprise the proper characteristics and traditions of jewellery. The name "Jocale", is a vulgar Latin term meaning "plaything" possibly related to the etymology of "Jewellery": I wanted to emphasize the dimension of fun and enjoyment I associate both with wearing jewels and affirming our uniqueness, a key factor to embrace who we are. The "Jocale" presented reveals an elephant's head reflection: a reference to "Swans Reflecting Elephants" by Salvador Dalí, that inspired Josef Friedrich's research into Art and Optic.

Jocale, created in 2021, is part of the ongoing project "Reflections on identity" by Josef Friedrich and Ester Sposato-Friedrich and it premiers during the Munich Jewellery Week. The neckless is in blackened silver, hand refined and the cuff is in silver gold plated, mirrored-polished, entirely handmade.

We created a space online to present "Jocale" and to discuss, with the idea in mind to put together an online exhibition of co-jewellery*: Link.


Co-jewellery*: That is the name we use to define self-expressive customized jewellery created by the collaboration, cooperation, communication between a client/wearer and a goldsmith/student/designer/artist/maker.

About the Interviewee

Josef Friedrich graduated from the "Städtische Meisterschule für das Gold- und Silberschmiedehandwerk" in Munich in 2002. Just finished school he began his apprenticeship with established goldsmiths. In 2005 he won with Ester Sposato-Friedrich the prize "Made" by MTV realizing his first jewelry exhibition "Spunti di fuga - vanishing points" in Genoa, Italy. From 2010 to 2018 co-owner of Atelier für Schmuck of which he has been the sole owner since 2018 with the name JF DAS ATELIER. The focus of his esthetic and artistic research is the relationship people have with jewelry. He collects pop-up books.

About the author

Ester Sposato-Friedrich obtained a Ph.D. in Art History (Dr. Phil.) from the LMU University of Munich 2013. She graduated in Critic of Art, Music, and Theater at the UNIBO University of Bologna with a thesis about Street Art. She won with Josef Friedrich the prize "Made" by MTV realizing her first paintings exhibition "Spunti di fuga - vanishing points“, Genoa, Italy. Among others, she won poetry prizes, is passionate about iconography, street art and jewellery.